Dispensing justice during pandemic times!

New Delhi: The year 2020 was extraordinarily demanding as courts faced an unprecedented challenge of dispensing justice in view of the difficult situation caused by COVID-19 pandemic. Hence e-courts, virtual Lok Adalats that provided a mechanism for dispute resolution at pre-litigation stage itself, became the permanent addition in the law lexicon. 

A new software patch and court user manual for COVID-19 management was developed to help in smart scheduling of cases thereby enabling judicial officers to retain urgent cases and adjourn cases not urgent on cause list.   A user manual for this patch was also issued for the ease of the stakeholders.

To make effective use of database created through National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) and to make the information available to public, LED Display Message Sign Board System called Justice Clocks were installed in 18 High Courts.  The purpose of Justice Clock was to bring awareness to the public about justice sector, advertising the various schemes of the department and to give status of various fields to the public.

Eight Electronic Case management tools for Judges and seven Electronic Case management tools for advocates were integrated in one single platform  and the same was made available on e-court services portal and mobile app.  Automatic and random allocation of commercial cases without human intervention in dedicated commercial courts of Delhi and Mumbai was implemented.

A unique digital initiative, Tele-Law was  launched in April, 2017, primarily to address the cases at pre-litigation stage. It sought to provide free legal advice to the marginalised sections of the society.  Legal advice was provided at the Common Service Centres (CSCs), through video conferencing/telephone facility available at the CSCs, by panel lawyers. Para legal volunteers were engaged to facilitate beneficiaries to approach the CSCs to register their cases for seeking advice. During the Covid-19 lockdown period this program proved its immense potential, strength and utility for the citizen in these trying circumstances. Advice related to Covid-19 pandemic was rendered to many beneficiaries across the country. This year, advice was given for 2,66,089 cases which included 71,394 women, 71,398 Scheduled Caste, 54,536 Scheduled Tribe and 88,109 OBC beneficiaries. 

Video conferencing (VC) emerged as the mainstay of the Courts during the Covid lockdown period as physical hearings and normal court proceedings in the congregational mode were not possible.  Since Covid lockdown started, the District courts heard 35,93,831 cases while the High Court heard 13,74,048 cases (totalling to 49.67 lakh) till October 28, 2020 using video conferencing only. The Supreme Court had nearly 30,000 hearings during the lockdown period.

To bring about uniformity and standardisation in the conduct of video conferencing, an overarching order was passed by the Supreme Court of India on April 6, 2020 which gave legal sanctity and validity to the court hearings done through VC. Further, VC rules were framed by a 5 judge committee which was circulated to all the HCs for adoption after local contextualisation. 

So far, the VC rules were adopted by 12 HCs.   An upgraded cloud-based VC infrastructure with latest features and robust security was also being developed by the NIC.   As part of the “AtmaNirbhar App Challenge” some Indian made video conferencing apps were also shortlisted and undergoing tests for use as Video Conferencing platforms.  One video conference equipment eachwas provided to all Court Complexes including Taluk level courts and additionally funds were sanctioned for additional VC equipment for 14,443 court rooms. VC facilities were already enabled between 3240 court complexes and corresponding 1272 jails.

Live Streaming of video conferencing of proceedings also started in Kerala, Bombay and Delhi thus allowing media and other interested persons to join the proceedings.  The eCommittee of the Supreme Court set up a Committee to draw Standard Operating Procedure for live streaming. Live streaming of cases begun in Gujarat HC experimentally as a pilot project.   A Working Group of Judges and domain experts was also set up for preparing a SOP for scanning, storage, retrieval and preservation of legacy data of courts.

An e-filing system (version 1.0) was also rolled out for the electronic filing of legal papers. This allowed the lawyers to access and upload documents related to the cases from any location 24X7 which makes coming to the court for filing of papers unnecessary.  Further the details of the case entered in the efiling application were consumed in the CIS software and hence chances of mistakes were minimised. An upgraded version 2.0 & 3.0 was prepared which was more user friendly and with upgraded features like advocates’ portfolio, advocate clerk entry module, calendar and integration with social media platforms which was currently undergoing test. Draft eFiling rules were formulated and circulated to the High Courts for adoption. Supreme Court of India also developed upgraded eFiling version 3.0 which was introduced on a pilot basis and undergoing final security audit.  There was a surge in the number of lawyers and litigants registering for the e filing during the COVID-19 pandemic. To promote e filing, all Central and State Government departments including the PSUs were requested to use e filing in all commercial disputes coming up in the commercial courts.

eSewaKendras were also rolled out to bridge the digital divide by providing e filing services to lawyers and litigants. Currently covering all High Courts and one District court as pilot project, it is being expanded to cover all court complexes. eSewaKendras were set up at the entry point of the court complexes with the intention of facilitating the lawyer or litigant who needs any kind of assistance ranging from information to facilitation and e-filing.

The e-filing of cases required facilities for e-payments of court fees which includes court fees, fines and penalties which were directly payable to the consolidated fund. Online payment of court fees, fines, penalties and judicial deposits was initiated through https://pay.ecourts.gov.in. Introduction of electronic collection of court fees and other civil payments required appropriate amendments in the existing Court Fees Act enacted by the various State Governments besides opening a bank account in a nationalised bank or in other bank suitable to receive, hold and disburse such payments electronically.  21 States already amended the Court Fees Act.

During this pandemic year, nine virtual courts were set up at Delhi (2 courts), Faridabad (Haryana), Pune and Nagpur (Maharashtra), Kochi (Kerala), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Gauhati (Assam), and Bengaluru (Karnataka) to try traffic offences.  The concept was aimed at reducing the footfalls in the court by eliminating the presence of the violator or advocate in the court. 

Virtual court could be managed by a virtual judge (which is not a person but an algorithm) whose jurisdiction could be extended to the entire state and working hours could be 24X7.  As on December 8, 2020, these courts had handled 35,02,896 cases and realised Rs.130.72 crores in fines.

In November 2020, Delhi High Court issued “Digital NI Act Courts-Project Implementation Guidelines” and operationalisation was expected soon to have virtual courts dealing with Negotiate Instruments Act cases. Besides being environmentally friendly as cases were adjudicated in a paperless manner, it would save judicial manpower and would add to convenience of citizens.

It may be mentioned that as part of the National eGovernance Plan, the eCourt Project had become an integrated Mission Mode Project under implementation since 2007 for the ICT development of the Indian Judiciary based on the “National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in the Indian Judiciary”.  The e-Court Integrated Mission Mode Project was launched with the objective of improving access to justice using technology.  Under this project, 16,845 courts, across the country, were computerised so far with software compatibility and interoperability. Now a Committee was constituted for ideating on the Vision Document for Phase III of the e-Courts project which included domain experts besides Judiciary and Technical members.

The Wide Area Network (WAN) Project under eCourts project aimed at connecting all District and Subordinate court complexes, spread across the country using various technologies like OFC, RF, VSAT. So far, 2931 sites (98%) were commissioned out of 2992 sites with 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps bandwidth speed.  This formed the backbone for the e-courts project ensuring data connectivity in courts across the length and breadth of the country. Now another committee was set up by the Department of Justice to develop a SOP for lodging complaints and capacity upgradation of the WAN bandwidth to ensure seamless data transmission in view of the enhanced load during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of eCourt Project, 7 platforms were now created to  provide real time information on case status, cause lists, judgements to lawyers/litigants  through SMS Push and Pull (1,42,000 SMS sent daily), Email (2,00,000 sent daily), multilingual and tactile e-courts services portal (25 lakh  hits daily), JSC (Judicial Service Centres) and info kiosks.  On the National eTaal, the e-courts services portal recorded 224.41 Crore transactions during the year making it the lead Mission Mode Project.  In addition, Electronic Case Management Tools (ECMT) was created with Mobile App for lawyers (with 49.50 Lakh Downloads till date) and JustIS app for judges (14,000 downloads till date).

Different versions of Case Information Software (CIS), which forms the basis for the e court services, was now being implemented in District Courts and High Courts.  Every single case was now provided a Unique Identification Code called CNR number and QR Code. This led to the development of National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) as a new communication pipeline for judicial data transmission. The NJDG developed under the eCourts Project, with elastic search technology, allowed lawyers and litigants access case status information of 17.55 crore cases and more than 13.16 crore orders/judgments.  The portal also provided information related to details of court registration, cause list, daily orders and final judgements. Access was now also provided to data of all High Courts and District Courts in the country. This became an important tool to identify, manage and reduce case pendency.  Recently a feature for showing the reason for delay in disposal of the case too was added.

In consonance with the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) announced by the Government of India, Open Application Programming Interface (API) was provided to the Central and State Government to allow easy access to the NJDG data using a departmental ID and access key. This would allow the institutional litigants to access the NJDG data for their evaluation and monitoring purposes.

National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) was also launched for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons. A GPS enabled device was given to the bailiff for the service of summons leading to greater transparency and speedy delivery of processes. It provided real time status update of service of summons besides tracking of geographical coordinates of the process server at the time of serving.

– global bihari bureau